


For the Birthday Boy

by kalika_999



Series: Jack and Brock's misadventures [61]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Birthday Cake, Christmas, Disabled Character, HYDRA Husbands, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 06:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17177456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalika_999/pseuds/kalika_999
Summary: Jack's made himself a slave to boring Christmas themed cakes until a stupidly handsome stranger begs him to make a custom birthday cake for Christmas day.





	For the Birthday Boy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Steve-Bucky-Stucky (Chemical30)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chemical30/gifts).



> Before you stepped into my life, I never much thought about HH being dads but when you introduced kid!TJ Hammond into the mix it's now one of my very favorite things to talk about, so thank you my friend. <3

“I hate Christmas.” Jack says with a heavy dramatic sigh.  He takes a look at the night sky outside before glaring at the ribbons and swirls of rainbow icing across the last chocolate cupcake.

He’s finally finished the order of five dozen unicorn cupcakes, all they’ll need is a dash of glittery star sprinkles and Wanda can take care of that when she comes in tomorrow morning before shift since she was always excited over adding the little touches like that.

There’s still eight Yule logs all with different specifications to do, three gingerbread homes, a sugar nativity scene and too many orders for the reindeer, snowman and Santa themed cakes that he began offering last year.  He had started doing it for the extra little bit of income the holidays brought in for them and it blew up in his face. It wasn’t that he minded, it was just that it was the same designs over and over again, there was no one except a handful few that trusted him to experiment and make their Christmas a special surprise.  He was thankful for the word of mouth’s, the community supporting one another and all that, it was just soul draining on his creativity every November and December. (October was always the best, everyone loved over the top Halloween cakes.) The Holidays were not the time to trust Jack apparently, everyone needed something that had to be exactly right or it wasn’t Christmas and he just had to roll with it.

“Don’t lie.  Santa doesn’t like liars.” Clint warns from his station at the other side of the counter, piping up sugar cookies while wearing an oversized Santa hat.

“People are suffocating me.  No one wants to give me something to work off of, I’m not generic, Clint.  I opened this place to create, not make my thirtieth snowman cake and have soccer moms lick icing off their fingers like that’s going to get me to ask them for a quickie in the back room.”

Clint snorts and that’s when Jack notices a man with dark hair and sharp cheekbones standing a few steps inside with a furrowed brow.

Jack straightened up. “Hey, welcome to _Cake me up, before you go-go_ , how can we help?” (He knows it’s a dorky and terrible name but _he’s_ dorky and terrible).

“Uh, m’at the right place, yeah?  My friend sent me over ‘ere but she coulda been sendin’ me to a dirty cake shop fer all I know.  She does shit like that sometimes. I jus wanted to order a normal cake, said Jack was the best.”

“Jack can definitely make you a dick cake if you like.” Clint pipes in while laughing, the bell at the end of his hat jingling annoyingly as he does.

Brows go up and Jack flashes his friend the best glare he can muster at the moment.  “I’m Jack, though I’m not sure about the recommendation of your friend. We specialize in all kinds of cakes,” He says, then quickly adds, “ _Only_ pg-13 cakes. What are you looking for?”

“I ain’t exactly got that far.” The man says as he slips his gloves off and tucks them into his pocket, rubbing his hands together, face flushed from the cold outside.  He scans the simple yet colorful chalkboard hung up behind them above their heads detailing sale prices for cookies, cupcakes and a few other readily available treats; all different items they rotate through the week that customers can have there or take home. 

He moves forward, unsure and Jack gives him a sympathetic smile, wiping frosting off his hands before he reaches for their holiday cake book.  “We have three themed cakes available if you have a child in mind; Santa, a snowman and a reindeer. If they prefer cupcakes we can do that too or,” He flipped through a few pages turning to the Yule log. “These if not for kids.  They can be met with your specifications on snow or twigs, whatever you like. We also have cookies or- “

“Actually.” The stranger interrupts.  “My friend said you’re a genius with special orders.  Somethin’ not fer Christmas but I need it fer that day.  Do ya got any room fer that?”

Jack deflates.  Of course the moment he’s full up on orders and then some but could squeeze in one last generic cake, this man has the nerve to walk in and ask for the one thing Jack wishes he could do but truly has no time for.  He’s about to point out what they have in for Christmas stock that he could fit into his possible plans or close by alternative cake shops when the man holds a hand out carefully like he’s aware it’ll stop Jack’s mind from running around.

“You mind if I explain everythin’ to ya before you say no?”

Jack stares at him a long moment, resting the book back down on the table. “Sure, go ahead.”

Grateful, the same hand comes out further and Jack immediately reaches over the counter to shake it. “M’Brock by the way.  Good to finally put a face on ya, Nat tells me great things about this place.”

Jack softens a little.  Natasha. Of course. The smartly dressed, one-dirty-look-and-you’re-dead lawyer that always drops in to buy whatever she can get her hands on.  She’s also fairly vocal on how Jack should meet her friend and neighbor, Brock. That she’s pretty sure they’re a match made in heaven. He’s always laughed it off but now he’s not sure how he’s feeling.

He smirks.  “I could say the same thing.  Natasha’s mentioned you a few times.”

Brock catches his eye and there’s a glint in it. “I know a guy who’s perfect for ya?”

Jack nods, finds it pointless to lie. “She’s been trying for almost a year.”

“Six months fer me.” Brock pauses with a shrug.  “I was in a serious thing, I ignored her when she was doing it while we were together.  You do that when you know a woman like her.”

Jack nods in agreement and Brock pulls out his phone, going through his pictures and shows him one of a little boy.  Clint shifts a bit closer to have a look, the bell of his hat calling him out. The kid looks to be about two or three and clearly shy, hiding behind the skirt of a woman that looks like his grandmother, chocolate brown hair falling in every which way in loose curls and large expressive grey eyes.  Whoever he is, Jack’s a goner already.

“That’s my nephew, TJ.  He’s usually livin’ with my sister in Canada.” He pauses, pulling the phone away to stare at the picture a long moment before slipping it back into his pocket. “Last week she was in a bad accident, she’s going to be in there for a good two months at least and my Nonna’s too elderly to watch TJ on a regular basis.  We, we don’t got parents no more, no family ‘round here. I’m the only one that can watch ‘im, so I offered. He’s gonna be arrivin’ tomorrow mornin’ and he thinks he’s gonna be on vacation with uncle Brock, which is pretty much what’s goin’ on.”

Brock rubs the back of his neck when he realizes he’s rambling.  “Anyway, I don’t usually ever do much on the holidays, I go visit ‘em, brave the snow and all that but back home over ‘ere I don’t even put up a tree.  TJ’s birthday is on Christmas, his ma always makes it extra special for ‘im, she always gets a cake with a wolf on it and I ain’t got no head to make a cake, especially not of some animal.  Hell I’m hirin’ a team to decorate my apartment because I don’t know what the hell I’m doin’, I gotta pick up a kid’s bed and some clothes and _shit_.”

Exhaling deeply, Brock seems to realize just then how serious the situation is and how much of a change it’ll be for him.  “Look, I know it’s real late to ask but..” His voice wobbles, just barely. “I can’t disappoint ‘im, he deserves a nice Christmas while he’s stayin’ with me.  He’s got a little bit of a learnin’ disability, he don’t exactly know what’s happenin’ all the time and I wanna make this all as nice as possible. He’s the sweetest kid you’d ever meet and I can’t be the shitty uncle who ruins a birthday while his ma ain’t around.”

Between the slight crack in his voice, the tragic expression on his face and the adorable kid in the picture that’s clearly loved, Jack was backed into a corner.

His shoulders fall and he gives up, stooping down past the cash register to get the form for special orders and slides it towards Brock with a pen.  “Fill out your info and then we can move on from there.”

*****

Jack practically lives at the shop, making sure orders are going out on time as well as making sure their in-store stock isn’t suffering because of it.  He sends photos and ideas to Brock on what TJ may or may not prefer on his cake and how the scene may play out. Brock equally sounds excited and nervous in his texts back, trying hard to encourage Jack that he knows what he’s doing.  While he has experience to know that’s true, Jack prefers not to mess up a child’s birthday and Christmas in one fail swoop, _especially_ when he has special needs, so eventually he gets through to Brock and they collaborate together. 

When Brock one night texts him after closing about how annoying tinsel is and Jack takes any break he can from three sets of snowmen to tell him a pointless history about the origin story about tinsel starting in Nuremberg around 1610, it’s natural for them to make it a thing they do from then on. 

It doesn’t take long for more personal aspects of their life to slip in, just barely but less professional; Brock would send him a few snaps of TJ in his new temporary home all smiles and sunshine, Jack in turn would send him photos of his projects in the kitchen or whatever he saw at the park on his breaks.  Sometimes they would mention things about their childhood during Christmas, always good memories and Jack felt good about it all.

Very rarely, in the lost hours of the wee mornings, Brock would leave him a message of if he took himself home yet.  Sometimes when Jack had a second to breathe, usually in the mid-afternoon, he’d ask Brock how he was holding up and to remind him it was okay to stop everything and to just relax, that kids were resilient.

The tiny little inspiration board he makes for TJ’s upcoming cake makes Jack remember why he got into this business in the first place.

*****

Brock arranges to pick the cake up just before closing time on Christmas Eve and hold it for Christmas day but Jack insists on dropping it off for him on the special day since it’s on the way to a church function he promised he’d donate some cakes to for their annual community luncheon. (It’s actually on the other side of town, but no one needs to know that.)

Brock’s got his front apartment door open by the time Jack’s stepped off out of the elevator with the boxes in hand and he’s led through a nice sitting area and to a small dining table.  While he sets it up, he can’t help smiling over how overly decorated it is everywhere. No matter where he looks, there’s a santa or a reindeer somewhere and when there isn’t, it’s holly and wreaths. 

The tree is insanely covered with tinsel and the whole situations screams of someone that invited Christmas decorators and then decided to add a little bit more.  He can figure out what happened, and Jack can’t help glancing at Brock when he slips into the kitchen to get him some water. It’s the first time he notices the man is wearing a large baggy Spongebob Christmas sweater and while his furniture is all neat and clean lines, the whole sitting area is covered in books and toys.

Jack thinks it’s sweet, all the effort, but he ignores the warmth in his chest over it and takes that as a cue to go back to setting the cake up.

“It’s amazin’..” Brock admits a moment later behind him, stepping in closer to look at the details after handing Jack a bottle of water.

It’s three tiered with intricately created black sugar trees that are in season to have lost their leaves and surrounded in fondant snow.  A fragile wafer thin moon hangs as a backdrop for a black furred wolf howling before it and while it seems a little mature for a toddler he didn’t really mind putting in those small little efforts and even told Brock that he too, did his best with what was basically last minute.  Jack’s also a little proud and a little embarrassed on how long it took him to personally carve the animal out using rice krispie treats and too much fondant, obsessively creating each and every tuft of fur around it. The whole cake was airbrushed with shadows of blue to bring in a twilight hue and detailed in a glitter of tiny silver stars.  It was definitely beyond what was necessary.

There’s the sound of a toy piano being jammed away on happily, little giggles filling the room and floating out into the hallway.  Jack lingers in that direction for a second or two before he turns back to Brock still staring at the cake, his expression almost unreadable. 

“It wasn’t much,” He quickly explained when Brock was still fixated. “when you showed up, I mean.  Just worried about backlog I already had started to get. Honestly, it was fun to do this. I hope he likes it.”

“Why don’t we see what he thinks.”

Before Jack could tell him not to go through that trouble, Brock hastily moved out towards the hallway and slowly stepped into the first open bedroom, his tone switching to something more soft and gentle. 

There was a sound of exertion Jack raised his brows at before Brock complains that apparently TJ is getting too big for him.  It makes him smile a little and soon the pair come out, Jack holding himself completely still as he finally meets the boy in the images, thumb fit into his mouth, a stuffed wolf tucked against his chest and eyes locked on. 

“You wanna say hi, Teej?”

TJ turned his head from Jack to Brock before tucking his head away against his uncle’s neck and Brock gave his back a soothing rub, gaze shifting to Jack.  “Sorry, he gets shy sometimes with people he ain’t interacted with much.”

Jack waves it off.  “It’s fine, I get it.  I should go before your party starts- “

Brock rolls his eyes to stop him which he already knows means he needs to shut up, so he does.  Stepping up closer, Jack moves aside and Brock prods the boy until he raises his head again and finally catches sight of the cake, eyes lighting up.

“Look what Jackie made ya for yer birthday, TJ.”

A small chubby finger instantly points out the wolf Jack so painstakingly created. “Woof!”

Brock grins over a head of curls and Jack suddenly finds he likes that complete image, his mind quickly putting it away as soon as it arrives and clears his throat just as TJ tries to reach for the wolf but finds he’s too far to grab at it.

When he whines unhappily, Jack remembers the small box he brought with him and opens it to one lone mini cupcake, a smaller version of the same wolf on it just for the birthday boy.  “I made a distraction, just in case.”

Carefully taking it out, he handed it over without the delicate wax paper so not to be eaten accidentally and watches TJ take it apart in awe, holding the tiny edible wolf in one hand and taking a bite of the cupcake with the other, his stuffed toy falling to the ground.  Jack picks it up and holds it but doesn’t hand it over, not while fingers are covered in icing.

They both watch TJ enjoy the treat, laughing as he hesitates to taste the wolf, face crinkling in concentration and thought over if he should or shouldn’t before he does and his eyes light up.  It’s worth it, the longer work hours and staying up late, just to see Brock’s nephew brighten up like that and Jack can’t help the warm feeling encapsulate him before thinking he’s probably worn out his welcome.

He’s not ready for the light touch of a hand to his arm, looking Brock’s way when it does.

“You went above and beyond for me.” Brock admits in a low voice.

“You looked like you could use some back up,” Jack says with all honesty. “I was happy to help.”

“I ain’t even got the words, jus..thank ya.” Brock shakes his head, blinking a few times before they stare at each other again. “Ya helped us both out, I dunno what I woulda done if I couldn’t do this- “

“But you did.” Jack insists, his hand idly wiping icing off TJ’s fingers like he’s always done it before and TJ doesn’t argue, smiling away as he eats his treat.  “I know I haven’t been here to see it, but from what you’ve been telling me, you’ve been burning the candle at both ends to make sure he gets everything he needs and made sure this year’s birthday goes off with a hitch and I know it’s gonna be great.”

Brock inhales wetly and TJ looks up at him, reaching a hand up to pet his cheek comfortingly and Brock presses kisses against his fingers.  It’s too cute. “Thanks, Jack. Means a lot, I jus couldn’t fail. You’re amazin’.”

Jack laughs, shaking his head.  He’s anything but that and returns the stuffed wolf back into TJ’s possession. Brock steps closer, TJ nestled safe between them and it’s weird to Jack just how okay he is with this.  The apartment glitters with warm Christmas lights and a gentle smell of cinnamon and brown sugar, he knows if he looks out the windows, there’ll be the first flakes of snow.

“You are.” Brock asserts as he turns slightly to avoid squishing his nephew and Jack can’t help tilting a little in to Brock’s hand as he reaches up to cradle the side of his face.  Jack was pretty sure his feelings weren’t as transparent as this, but he seems to be wrong. “Thank you, fer everythin’. The best thing I got outta all this was a friend..and maybe somethin’ else?”

Jack smiles just before he’s pulled in for a kiss, it’s better than whatever he’s thought about while working on his cakes, it’s better than a lot of things he’s dreamed of since he’s met Brock.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t mock my love for Wham! :P 
> 
> Also, Happy Holidays!


End file.
